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Oscar-winning director and screenwriter James L. Brooks (Terms of Endearment; As Good As It Gets) returns to familiar territory after a seven-year absence with Spanglish. The wait was mostly worth it. Drawing his initial inspiration from a Spanish-speaking employee and her English-translating daughter, Brooks developed his culture-crossing exploration of mother-daughter bonds through conversations with as many as 18 Hispanic women at once. Less might have equaled more. A humanely comic drama, Spanglish suffers from a mild excess of plot.

Spellbinding in her English-language debut, Paz Vega (like Penélope Cruz, but with talent) stars as "drop-dead crazy gorgeous" Flor, a Mexican immigrant seeking a better life for her daughter Cristina (Shelbie Bruce). As housekeeper for Bel Air belle of neuroses Deborah Clasky (Téa Leoni, struggling with an unsympathetic role) and her family, Flor experiences all the drama you’d expect from a Brooks film. Third-act complications have her romantically inclining toward the "best chef in the US," Clasky patriarch John (Adam Sandler, channeling Albert Brooks); this builds to an emotional climax that risks the audience’s allegiance to the sharply observed characters. Even if they’re occasionally unpleasant, some risks are worth taking. (135 minutes)